


hell hath no fury

by mothwrites



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Multi, angst and also there's nice bits but it's mostly angst, fic written in reverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 02:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14126013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothwrites/pseuds/mothwrites
Summary: Jacobi starts, and looks wildly around the room. Those kind eyes are filled with tears. “Alana?” He whispers.She’s immediately intrigued. Just grief talking, or?“Can you hear me?” She wonders. “Clever boy.”





	hell hath no fury

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS: This fic includes descriptions of the Decima virus (nothing too graphic), romance (Fourier/Hui), heavy angst, and characters from both the Lovelace and Minkowski administrations. Kepcobi if you squint.

**5.**

“And then what?” Minkowski shouts, red-faced and shaking. “Who pays for this? Who owns up for this murder? And for the one after this one? Whose responsibility is that?

Jacobi spits out his answer as casually as anything: “Problem for another day!”

It’s at that point she starts to feel something a little like remorse.

It’s not like he’s never killed anyone before, she reasons.

It’s not like he doesn’t secretly want to.

She wants him to. So badly. But her hastily-concocted plan went south, and the stupid morality of those who are still alive to have it is getting to her. She notices how Jacobi’s voice shakes, despite his words. Notices how his eyes are screwed up and harsh. _I did that,_ she thinks. _I whispered to him. I made him want to be a killer._ He was a killer before, of course, but she did it all over again. That’s not her. Is it?

The fake autopilot detonation sequence advances from three to two.

“You think I don’t get it?” Minkowski continues. Not for the first time, she feels admiration for her. She wasn’t her commander, of course, but she thinks they would have gotten along, in different circumstances. “How betrayed you feel? By him? By me? How sad you are? How unbelievably angry? Well, guess what: I’m right there with you.”

 _Are you?_ She thinks. _Could you ever… Could you even possibly…_

She floats over to Jacobi as they continue to yell at each other. The Colonel watches them both with wild eyes. _Good,_ she thinks. _You should be scared. You should be terrified of what I could do to you._

What she _could_ do. The human she was before this wouldn’t want blood on her hands, even _his_ blood. She hears Minkowski tell him that more killing won’t help. She sighs – a fruitless gesture, now that she doesn’t need to breathe – and whispers something into Jacobi’s ear. She’s not even sure if he can still hear her, but he seems to deflate.

“What will?” He asks Minkowski softly.

Minkowski starts to lower her gun. “I don’t know,” she admits. “But between the two of us, there’s gotta be at least a small chance we figure it out, right?”

 _I already know what will_ , she thinks, as Jacobi stops their plan and makes the truce _. Get your crew home. Take Alana Maxwell’s memory with you._

 

**4.**

After a little searching she finds him in the makeshift brig, chained to a pipe. “Hey, kind eyes,” she says. That’s still the first thing she remembers of him. A complete lie, of course, just a useful feature to mask the acerbic wit and casual apathy for human life that lives behind them. Still.  

“I know you can’t hear me. I just wanted to thank you.” She settles down next to him, floating in the tiny space. He’s curled up, head on his knees. “It was you that killed him, right? Hilbert? I heard the explosion. That’s a… load off my mind.” She pats his shoulder. “Good job.” She was never this bloodthirsty as a human, she thinks. The thought is closely followed by this: if Kepler died too, maybe she could _sleep._ “But you’d never do that, would you?” She sighs, talking to herself now, (as if she wasn’t always). “You love him. You idiot.”

Jacobi starts, and looks wildly around the room. Those kind eyes are filled with tears. “Alana?” He whispers.

She’s immediately intrigued. Just grief talking, or?

“Can you hear me?” She wonders. “Clever boy.”

“Alana?” He says again, and then puts his head back in his hands. “Stupid – going crazy-“

“You’re not crazy,” she soothes. “It’s me, Daniel. I need you to listen, very carefully. I need you to do something for me.”

He’s a good listener. Every day she whispers into his hear he gets stronger, harder, more determined. A plan formulates, and she barely has to do a thing.

“Ready to be a bad guy again?” she asks.

Daniel sighs. “Hell. It’s about time.”

 

**3.**

She can’t bear to watch Isabel lose someone else. Not after everything they’ve been through.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers, making patting motions in the air around her.

 She was never too good at ‘soothing’. Isabel was never too good at being soothed. They make a hell of a pair.

“None of them could understand what we went through,” she continues. Or maybe they could, now. Minkowski wears the same haunted look that haunts Isabel. And Hilbert – how the hell is he still alive, and Officer Eiffel gone? She liked Eiffel. He made her laugh.

“And whoever’s on this ship, you’ll beat them. You’ll get home. I promise.” She has to. She’s the only one left.

When the doors open, revealing the newcomers, she’s the only one who isn’t staring at Officer Eiffel come back from the dead. It’s the man with the red hair who has her attention. Slight build. Kind eyes. _I know you,_ she thinks. _I remember you._

The other man, the Major (now Colonel), she remembers as well, and nowhere near as kindly. _So you’re back here,_ she thinks venomously, watching him spin lies over her Captain and her crew. _Well, so am I. And I’ve got all the time in the world._

 

**2.**

She hears voices, for the first time in days. She’s weak, but not too weak to bang her fists against the box in the cargo bay, yelling with all that’s left of her thin, reedy voice.

“Major!” Someone shouts. “Over here. Definitely getting life signs from…” he tails off, or she stops being able to hear him. There are footsteps, which get louder, and she punches the wall of the airlock one last, defiant, fruitless time. Nothing happens.

Then there’s a click, and the mechanical sound of cogs turning, and then she falls out of the airlock _,_ gasping for breath. There are tears in the corner of her eyes, but she doesn’t have the strength to wipe them away, or to even care.

“Hey, hey,” the same voice from before soothes her. A man bends down to help her into a sitting position. Light build. Red hair. Kind eyes. “We’ve got you. It’s okay. Just breathe, okay?”

She complies, for a moment, before more important things press themselves into the forefront of her mind. “The Captain,” she gasps. “Isabel – you have to warn her-“

The man exchanges a glance with his companion – the major, she assumes – and she doesn’t like what their eyes are saying. “What?” She demands.

The red-haired man puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name?” he asks.

She blinks at him. “Fourier. Doctor Victoire Fourier. Astrophysicist,” she adds, though it sounds meaningless now. _Part of a set,_ she thinks. _Always. Not any more._

“Doctor,” the man says, and he still sounds so kind. She almost relaxes. “I’m sorry, but Captain Lovelace… she didn’t make it. Her shuttle malfunctioned. I think it was quick,” he adds, still in that soothing tone of voice. “I’m sorry. We were too late.”

“You-“ She can’t think about Isabel right now. Brilliant, brave, beautiful Isabel. _At least it was quick. Not like Lambert. Not like Kuan._ “You got our messages?” She asks. “It’s been months…”

The man grimaces, apologetic. “Mechanical fault with the pulse beacon relay,” he says. “We only started getting the first of them just before we left. I’m sorry we took so long. Doctor – Can I call you Victoire?”

She nods. What does it matter now?

“Victoire,” he continues. “We’ll be heading home in a bit, and we’ll get you seen to. You obviously need rest. But can you tell me what happened here? You know, imminent dangers we should be looking out for? All we could find out was that people started to get sick –“

Her mind snaps back to her first priority. “Selberg,” she says, and it comes out as a frantic gasp. “He – went rogue, or something, I don’t know – but he killed them. _Poisoned_ them. Everyone except Fisher, and the Captain, and…” She’s about to say ‘me’, but there’s something heavy in her lungs, and even before her captivity, she felt so _tired…_ “Selberg,” she says again. “Where is he? You have to be careful-“

The man shushes her, still soothing. “We’ve got him,” he says. “Don’t worry. He can’t hurt you. He’ll be given exactly what he deserves when we get home. Can you stand?”

She’s not sure. _Home._ At least… at least she can take the rest of the crew with her. Their letters. Hui, even while shaking and pausing every ten minutes to vomit, had penned long letters in his beautiful penmanship to his mother and sisters. Her new mission is to get them all home. She takes a deep breath, and nods. “I think so.” _I’ll get you home, Kuan._

“That’s sorted, then,” the man’s companion, the major, says. The one who’d been silently regarding her since she was freed. “Mr Jacobi – mind stepping aside so I can clean up here?”

“Of course,” the man with the kind eyes replies, and immediately straightens up to stand away from her. Before she can register what this means, there’s a noise that reverberates around the cargo bay, cutting off all thought or reply. _What is that? What is…_

Victoire sits up and watches her body fall backwards, red pooling out from her breast, mouth in a comical ‘o’ of surprise. She touches her hand to her own chest, feeling the aftershocks. The scene plays out underneath her hovering form.

 _Ghost._ Kuan would be elated, she thinks. How very Lovecraft.

She stares at the face of the man who shot her. The Major. He has dark hair, greying at the temples, and an almost regal bearing, and a smile on his face. _You bastard,_ she thinks, and all of a sudden all of the rage in her ghostly form, every reason she’s had to be angry since this ridiculous mission started, it all focuses on him. _I’ll get you,_ she promises. Her one mission, get the crew home, stopped in its tracks by one easy shot. _There must be a way. If we can’t go home, I’ll make sure you never will._

 

**1.**

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Kuan asks.

She smacks him, lightly, with her copy of _Persuasion._ “This is awfully morbid talk for reading hour.”

“Indulge me.” His voice is rattling, and it makes her wince. She can hear the fluid in his lungs, and instead of answering she props up his pillows, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. He catches her wrist in his too-light grip.

“You’re just trying to get out of listening to Austen,” she accuses. She takes her hand in his. “I don’t know what I believe in,” she says eventually, relenting. “Not any more. But we don’t need to talk about ghosts,” she says, authoritatively. “Because no-one here is going to die. And besides, I’m going first, and if you have the audacity to die on me I’ll haunt you forever.”

That makes him crack a smile. The eyes that she loves so much wrinkle at the corners. “How would that even work?”

“I will _make_ it work,” she promises, and leans over to kiss his forehead. “Now then. Chapter five.” She cleared her throat of the lump that had formed there. “On the morning appointed for Admiral and Mrs Croft’s seeing Kellynch Hall,” she read aloud, “Anne found it most natural to take her almost daily walk to Lady Russel’s, and keep out of the way till all was over.”

“Victoire,” he interrupts, still holding her hand. Still smiling. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says, as matter-of-fact as she can, because it is a fact. She’s a scientist, she deals in facts. The Earth spins at 1,000 miles per hour, the sunsets on Mars are blue, and she loves Kuan Hui. And if she thinks about it too long she’ll start crying again, and then they’ll never finish _Persuasion._

She reads one-handed, so she can keep a hold of his. His grip gets lighter and colder, until he feels almost like a ghost.


End file.
